This week I practiced using a gift I don’t often use…biting my tongue. Let me explain.
I say what I mean. I mean what I say. I filter and edit and filter again…every single day…many times a day. People don’t think so because I say what I mean and I mean what I say. But it’s true. The amount of mental whirling that goes on in the split second between what you said and how I respond is very intense. I have a killer mental operating system.
I was born with it. I use it daily.
And still this week on multiple occasions I found myself slowing the operating system down to make a counter-intuitive decision.
- There was the time I stood in the hallway outside a coworkers office trying to decide whether to butt into a conversation or not. I did and I’m glad I chose conversation over ambivalence.
- There was the time the rude co-worker said “Don’t challenge me on this. Just answer my question” and I stopped time in my brain to determine whether or not to BLOW HER UP with my words when really she needs someone to do this to her for the team. For the record I chose to bite my tongue.
- There was the moment when I wanted to decline a kindness on principle and instead chose to accept it with humility.
- There was the moment when I wanted to accuse a friend of making things purposefully awkward just to make me uncomfortable about an awkward moment we had a YEAR ago. Instead I just hugged him instead and let it pass.
Some of these moments…I gently lament because I would have liked to have said what I feel needed to be said. But none of them do I regret because they (1) reduced my own drama, (2) reduced the drama for the group, and (3) left me with an opportunity to think about how disconcerting it is to slow my own operating system and do something counter intuitive.
These are not indicators that I won’t continue to trust my own judgement and let fly when the time is right. They are indicators that when surrounded by people who can’t handle the truth, sometimes you don’t tell the roughest version of the truth…and you wait for an opportune moment down the road.
LeahOS39 over and out!